Behind the Scenes: Brighter Bites in Washington, D.C.

In the fall of 2017, Brighter Bites launched in our fifth city. Earlier that summer, we had expanded our program beyond Texas (where we had established programs in Houston, Dallas, and Austin) and to the East Coast, where we began programming in New York City (read all about our NYC program here). After expanding to NYC, the most populous city in the United States, it was exciting to bring Brighter Bites to another iconic city: Washington, D.C.

By operating the Brighter Bites program in D.C. – right in the backyard of congressional representatives – we are provided with a unique opportunity to invite our nation’s policy makers to see our three-part model in person.

Two important partnerships have provided the foundation for success for Brighter Bites in D.C.

The first crucial partnership is with the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB), a nationall- innovative food bank and the leading champion of hunger relief in the D.C. metro region for decades. Brighter Bites’ Washington, D.C. office is located at the CAFB. “We feel like a part of the Food Bank community,” says Tara McNerney, Washington, D.C.’s Brighter Bites Program Director. “They’ve fully integrated us with the staff, operations, and planning there, and it’s been so helpful to our collaboration!” The CAFB provides half of the produce needed for the Brighter Bites program, as well as storage and transportation of the produce to schools. It was also CAFB that identified Prince George’s County, Maryland (which borders D.C.) as an ideal place for Brighter Bites to launch our D.C. program in its initial years. CAFB’s Hunger Heat Map  identified this area as one of high food insecurity with fewer hunger relief resources flowing to it. Brighter Bites is happy to help bridge that gap!

Pamela Boozer-Strother, District 3 Prince George’s County Public School Board of Education member recently visited a Brighter Bites produce bagging at Cool Spring Elementary School and was highly enthusiastic about the arrival of Brighter Bites to Prince George’s County. She commented that “nutrition is increasingly understood as a very important issue” by the education sector, and that “Brighter Bites is joining a really strong and effective group of nonprofits working with our students.” Read the full interview with Pamela here.

The second crucial partnership for the D.C. Brighter Bites program is with The Coastal Companies Foundation. Its subsidiary, Coastal Sunbelt Produce, is the mid-Atlantic’s leading food service distributor of produce, and they value Brighter Bites’ mission to build long-lasting healthy habits in children and their families. “The fact that the Brighter Bites model is rooted in data that shows quantifiable results really appeals to us” said Jaci Daly, a Coastal buyer and Brighter Bites’ primary liaison to the company. Coastal provides the D.C. program with the other half of our produce. Each week they send four unique produce varieties, items as unusual and exciting as persimmons, celery root, Asian pears, and even edible flowers! The families participating in Brighter Bites in Prince George’s County are exposed to so many new fruits and vegetables thanks to our partnership with Coastal!

In partnership with CAFB and Coastal, Brighter Bites has delivered more than 250,000 pounds of produce to over 1,000 families in Prince George’s County, MD, in the past year. We get feedback about Brighter Bites from our participating families all the time. One parent recently told us, “It’s very helpful to me because I was able to change my eating habits. I’ve become health conscious.” Another said, “For me, it was a great help, because I was able to try thing that I’ve never tried and that I cannot buy.”

Recently CAFB’s new CEO, Radha Muthiah, paid a visit to the state-of-the-art Coastal facility with Tara McNerney, Brighter Bites Program Director. They were excited to discuss with Coastal the plan to expand our programs to even more schools in Prince George’s County next year!

To learn more about our D.C. program, check out the spotlight on our Washington, D.C. team here.

By Tara McNerney, Program Director, Brighter Bites Washington, D.C.